


maybe the strangest thing was the friends we made along the way

by evilblubber



Category: Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens (2015)
Genre: Armie is a stone cold badass, Fluff, Han is oblivious, Hux needs to chill, Leia Organa Deserves Better, M/M, Poe Dameron is Not Dead, Stranger Things AU, Who the Fuck is Ben Solo, With Guns, kylo just needs a blanket and some hugs and he's content, kylo needs to work on his people skills, rey essentially adopts kylo, who has no idea what to do with Kylo
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-04
Updated: 2016-12-04
Packaged: 2018-09-06 07:57:03
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,827
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8741515
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/evilblubber/pseuds/evilblubber
Summary: “Are we going to talk about how he can move things with his mind?” says Hux, eyes still wide with shock, staring down at the children. He'd sort of emerged from the cocoon of flower-blanket that Kylo had wrapped him in so he could hold his plate, and there is still dirt in his hair. “And the faceless monster?” (Or, the Stranger Things AU no one asked for.)





	

**Author's Note:**

> I DON'T KNOW EITHER.
> 
> This was born of my sudden and desperate need for a stranger things au and here we are what the hell. Warning: may not be entirely coherent. 
> 
>  
> 
> [](http://evilblubber.tumblr.com/post/151379855384/can-i-have-a-stranger-things-au-like-can-someone%E2%80%9D>Based%20off%20this%20one%20post%20I%20made%20that%20one%20time.</a>)

 

Armie goes very, very cold, and very, _very_ still, when he hears the something _crunch_ behind him.

He’s got a shotgun, and a good one. He’s got aim that his brother refers to as terrifying and deadly. He’s got the very beginnings of a plan in his head ( _lure it out, shoot it in its fucking head, find Phas, find Phas_ ) and his fingers tighten as his mind goes blank.

It is dark, even with the flashlight. Thick clouds obscure the moon, and the trees tower above him like inky beasts all waiting to swallow him whole. He can’t see the line of lights and yelling that accompanied Han Solo’s search party, the one they’re leading for both Phas and the Dameron boy.

 _What if a gun isn’t enough?_ he thinks, perhaps a little belatedly.

There is a very distinct possibility that he has not thought this through. But now, in the middle of the woods with a Thing almost certainly following him, it’s far too late to back down now.

There is another _crunch_ , closer this time.

Then, a rustle, soft, laboured breathing.

Armie darts out from behind the tree in what is actually The Worst Decision in The History of Terrible Decisions, and _shoots_. He aims for the head, feels his head clear in what is likely killing intent. His hand is steady, his eyes are caught on a hulking figure swathed in black. The silence in broken with the noise from the gunshot, and Armie does not wince.

The figure stands unaffected, a long arm held out.

Armie feels his heart fucking _plunk_ in fear when he sees it; the bullet, suspended in midair, seemingly held up by some kind of invisible force. The creature drops its arm, and the bullet drops onto the ground.

It does not move. Slowly, shakily, Armie reaches for the flashlight he’d dropped onto the ground in his haste, and turns it on the creature.

His jaw drops.

The boy blinks, wipes away the blood leaking out from his nose. And it _is_ a boy, with long black hair and a godawful blood-smeared Christmas sweater. There’s a jagged scar cut across his face, blood leaking out of his nose.

_What the everloving fuck._

“Pretty hair,” says the boy, smile bright in the glare of the flashlight, pointing at Armie’s head.

Armie is about to ask him something (and that something is probably _what the fuck are you_ ) when they hear an unholy screech cut across the night.

The boy goes pale, smile morphing into horror. “Bad thing,” he whispers, surging forward and grabbing Armie by the shoulder, “run!”

 

(Later, Armie comes to the conclusion that _no, the shotgun was most certainly not enough._ )

  


* * *

  


Rey walks into the basement, carefully balancing a plateful of sausages and eggs, humming. She wonders, absently, if Kylo would actually be satisfied with this meal. Guy eats like a vaccuum cleaner.

She’s on the bottom step when she realizes that there is a second occupant in the blanket fort.

 

(After Finn and Rey found a shaky teenager in the woods who wouldn’t talk except for _yes, no,_ and _the Bad Things are coming_ and who called himself Kylo, they’d decided that he was Helpful and took him in.

They rationalized this like this:

  1. Kylo definitely knows something about the Thing that took Poe. And he can move things with his mind, like magic. So they should keep him.
  2. Kylo has no idea how to do things like talk to people or do the laundry or hide the fact that he can move things with his mind. So they should keep him.
  3. He has nowhere to stay. So they should keep him.
  4. He’s easy to look after, like a puppy. He likes lots of food, and likes having his head scritched. And he likes sweet things, and Rey’s Auntie Leia’s makeup. So they should keep him.



So they built him a fort out to blankets and pillows, and he curls up there and hums and he seems very cozy. Rey kind of wishes they could keep him forever, but this arrangement isn’t very long-term.)

 

 

Kylo’s hair is wilder than normal, and littered with dirt and stray leaves. His face is smeared with blood, which has dried right under his left nostril, which meant he used the Force thing again. He’s changed clothes; now he’s wearing her dad’s old college shirt and a pair of sweatpants, neither of which fit him very well.

The thing that really grabs her attention is the boy next to him, though.

He’s got red hair and looks kind of sharp, a skinny teenager holding himself like he’s a coiled spring. Sharp eyes and a pointy nose and lips pursed, wrapped up in a flowery quilt.

Finn thunks down onto the step behind her and yells, “Kylo! Is that Armie Hux? What is _Armie flippin’ Hux_ doin’ here?”

Armie Hux, who was apparently cleaning a gun _oh my god he has a gun he has a gun,_ turns to them with a raised eyebrow. Kylo grins lazily, and points at his head, and says, “Pretty hair.”

Rey, setting the plate down on the table, groans.

 

(He is _exactly_ like a puppy.)

 

* * *

 

“Why did you bring him here?” asks Rey, watching Kylo inhale his food, as Hux pokes at an omelette with a vaguely nauseous expression.  
  
“Pretty hair,” insists Kylo.  
  
“Are we going to talk about how he can move things with his mind?” says Hux, eyes still wide with shock, staring down at the children. He'd sort of emerged from the cocoon of flower-blanket that Kylo had wrapped him in so he could hold his plate, and there is still dirt in his hair. “And the faceless monster?”  
  
Rey gasps, “You’ve seen the Demagorgon?”  
  
“The _what_.”  
  
Kylo mimics the unholy screech of the thing that hunted them down in the middle of the night, a scraping, high-rasp that makes everyone jump. Hux nearly drops his plate, and Rey pretty much has a heart attack. He beams expectantly at them.  
  
“Thanks, Kylo,” says Finn, in a resigned sort of way, patting him on his arm (which is as high as he can reach), “that was very helpful.”

 

* * *

 

Kylo sits still as Armie dabs at his face with the wet cloth.

(The memorial for Poe Dameron, unsurprisingly, was a complete disaster. What happened afterwards was also a disaster.)

Armie can’t look away from his eyes, his big, black-as-night eyes that feel like they’re slowly swallowing him whole. He feels like Kylo is using that Force thing on him, pulling him in, like he can’t breathe, like he never wants to look away.

Kylo sucks his lower lip in, brow furrowing slightly, when Armie gets to his cheek. And he can’t help but stare at that, too, at the flushed-pink of it, feel himself growing hotter in response.

He wipes the last of the makeup off, leaving the jagged, angry scar open. His fingers itch to touch it, where it cuts across his cheek, barely missing his eye. It had taken he and Rey ages to cover it up, the way it curves over his face, making him simultaneously more terrifying and vulnerable.

He wants to _touch._

Kylo glances to a side, at the mirror, and sullenly touches the scar. Where it had been hidden only minutes before.

 

(“ _He can’t go out with that eyesore on his face,_ ” Armie had said, after many find-Kylo-suitable-clothes shenanigans.

And Kylo had touched his makeup covered face reverently, eyes wide with wonder as he looked at himself unscarred. And he’d beamed bright like he didn’t know what hurt was, and Armie couldn’t help but smile back.)

 

“You don’t need it,” Armie says, abruptly.

Kylo turns to look at him, and his eyes are like a sucker-punch. Armie knows, distantly, that he is _fucking screwed._

“Still pretty?” asks Kylo, softly.

“Of course-- _really_ pretty,” Armie stammers, flushing at how awkward he sounds. But that sort of fades away when Kylo smiles.

 

Armitage Hux is only sixteen, but he suspects he’d kill for that smile.

 

* * *

 

Leia Organa is many things, but she is not crazy.

She is a survivor, first and foremost. If she could survive losing her son, _her Ben_ , to a shadow organization no one believes in, she could survive this. If she could survive years of _he’s dead, Leia, let it go,_ and _you’re out of your damn mind, do you hear yourself_ and _you can’t keep doing this,_ she could survive this.

Dear god, this is like Ben all over again.

“I am telling you,” she hisses, and Han keeps looking at her with an odd mixture of disbelief and pity, “that’s not Poe. I know that boy, Han, I practically raised him after Shara and Kes died. I know that boy like he’s my own son, and _that’s not him_.”

“What the hell are you saying, then?” asks Han, running his hand through his hair wearily, “that that’s, I dunno, a clone, in the morgue? That some suits replaced Poe with someone else?”

“I don’t know!” she throws up her arms, frustrated. She isn’t usually like this, she can normally control her hair-trigger temper. But lately, she’s been feeling frayed around the edges, and, what was it that Poe used to say? _like butter scraped over too much bread_.

“I don’t know what’s going on, Han,” she says, heatedly, “All I know is, he’s not dead, and there is something very wrong about all of this.”

Han sighs. She looks at him, begging _please please believe me I have no one else you used to have my back all the time where is that now I need you to have my back right now please please please beieve me I know it sounds crazy but I need you to believe me I need you_

“Go home, Leia,” he says, quietly, “You’ve been through a lot. Get some rest.”

She wants to punch something.

 

* * *

 

 

**BONUS:**

On her way home, she bumps into a boy. He’s a tall one, wearing a sweatshirt from the college Luke used to go to. “Sorry,” she mutters, as the boy stares down at her. “I wasn’t--I should have paid more attention.”

The boy, who looks oddly familiar, with his dark eyes and large ears and something about the way he stands, smiles uncertainly. He shrugs, before breaking eye-contact with her and walking off. 

She stares after him for a while, feeling strangely wrong-footed, like she missed a step while climbing down the stairs.

  


(“What was that?” asks Armie, while Kylo stares after the woman he’d bumped into. Leia Organa, Dameron’s guardian. She looks awful, he notes, like she hasn't slept in days. Kylo's chewing on his lower lip thoughtfully, head tilted to the side. Armie waits for a response, and when none comes, goes back to hauling boxes.

“Warm,” says Kylo, after a solid five minutes. Armie, who has finished filling the trunk of the car with weapons, does not ask.)

  
  



End file.
